These Lonely Nights (Hwang Hyunjin)

VI. He isn't even yours to lose

I'm almost glad when I hear him in the hall the next night.

Almost glad, because despite everything Felix had said, despite all my resolutions to listen to him, despite the clear, obvious fact that the best option for us both was for Hyunjin to find a new place to crash when he drank himself into blackouts, in the past twenty-four hours my thoughts have incessantly turned to the exact shape of his eyes when they ghosted over my lips and refused to leave.

His words, too, have burrowed themselves deep in my mind, as well as my response to them. Almost as much as Felix's. Perhaps because they had been achingly true; perhaps because they had been said with such quiet vulnerability; perhaps because it had been him who had said them. Perhaps all three.

Would it really be that bad? Waiting for me?

Yes.

You're destructive, Hyunjin. You destroy everything around you, and I'm not stupid enough to take that risk. I've already had my life destroyed once by someone who chose drinking over me. I wouldn't survive it if it happened again.

I wince, setting my pen down. Even now, a week later, the words echo through me, reminding me of how much could've been salvaged if I had just kept my mouth shut. Damn him for introducing vulnerability into the situation—for being honest. Damn him for making me do the same, and then ghosting me and leaving me with my thoughts and regrets and my empty couch.

He'd left an imprint on said couch, just slightly. It had been warm when I'd pressed my hand to it. That night—we'd left things cold and bleeding. I'd retreated to my own room, leaving him with a blue Gatorade and unresolved tension, and woken up the next morning to find him gone, like always, the remnants of all our stiff unspoken words hanging in the air like stale crusts of bread.

I can see him everywhere, now, and it's infuriating. His smell clings to the air like a lover's embrace, his cologne mixed with the faint, musky scent of alcohol; his touch is everywhere, from the new divot in my couch cushions to the empty water glasses in the sink and open prescription bottles of aspirin. I see him in my math homework and my Scrabble set and even my goddamn Totoro plushie.

Leave it to Hwang Hyunjin to ruin Totoro for me.

Maybe I'll tell him that, once I can look at him without feeling that muted flash of guilt I've come to consider an old friend. (But not the kind of old friend you have nostalgia with. More like that one old friend who you kind of know and you've seen around but you also probably wouldn't invite them over to your house or let them touch your nice flower vases).

I shake my head, wondering if Hyunjin is so contagious I'm starting to think like him too now, and make my way over to the door to let him in; he's making quite a ruckus in the hallway, starkly clear through the thin walls.

My hand is on the doorknob when I hear the voice.

The voice that is low and dripping like honey as it asks if he still has his key, breathless and high-pitched and utterly, utterly female.

The doorknob turns to ice in my hand.

Hyunjin's reply is soft enough it's hard to hear, and I can't help myself from pressing my ear against the door even as it fills me with a sick feeling inside. He's saying he does, it's here, and then he's unlocking the door with a laugh, and she's laughing too and I can hear them tumble inside, probably already wrapped in each other, their hands tangling in one another's clothes. The door shuts with a resounding clang, echoing hollow through my bones.

I don't realize my hand is shaking until the doorknob makes a rattling sound. I've never heard him laugh before, I realize with a shard of ice straight to my chest. Chuckle, or snicker, maybe, but not—not laugh. Not like he just did with ... with her. Whoever she was. A classmate? An ex, maybe? I'm sure it could be anyone; there are a thousand girls he could choose from, after all, girls who are thin and pretty and fun and—